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��NEW LONDON CENTENNIAL ADDRESS.
��I find this account of traces of the Indians in Sutton, near Kezar's Pond, in the northerly part of the town and not far from the line of New London. Sutton was then known as Perrystown and was settled first in 1767, some eight years before this town was settled, and it was stated of the early settlers there, that though no Indian was seen by them, yet it seemed as though he had just put out his fire and gone away, as the white man came. His track was still plain and visible. On the west bank of Kezar's Pond were sev- eral acres of land which appeared to have been cleared by them of their orig- inal forests. Here were found several Indian hearths built with stone, with much skill and ingenuity. Here was found an Indian burying place. Gun barrels and arrows have also been found here, and near the pond were found stone mortar pestles and tomahawks.
It is certain that these regions were once, and that not long before the advent of the pale-faces, inhabited by the red man ; he hunted his game over these hills and encamped and lived on the banks of our Great Lake, Sunapee, and of our smaller ponds, nestling as they do in beauty among our hills. Upon investigation I find that large numbers of Indian utensils and arms have been found by Mr. James M. Pike and Mr. Amos Currier in the west part of the town near Sunapee Lake, so that I am satisfied the Indians had a settle- ment on the border of the lake in that neighborhood, and that they had a track or path from such settlement down by Harvey's Pond to North Sut- ton, to Kezar's Pond, which we have just noticed. They also visited Little Sunapee Pond and had a settlement in the summer season on its easterly shore, and had a track or path from thence easterly over the height of land to the upper end of Pleasant Pond, where they also had another settlement, and where they had cleared up the forests, on the intervale ; and this clearing was the first place occupied by the white man in that part of the town. They were in the habit of hunt- ing in summer all over our hills, and
��their arrow-heads of stone have been found by Gen. McCutchins, by Mr. Nathan Pingree, Mr. Ransom Sar- gent and others ; and a few years since Mr. Asa Ray plowed up an Indian gouge in the path leading from Little Sunapee to Pleasant Pond, which is now in possession of Mr. S. D^ Messer. New London was first settled in
1775, some four years before it was incorporated. James Lamb and Na- thaniel Merrill were the first settlers, and they were soon followed, in the same season, by Eliphalet Lyon and Ebenezer Hunting. The next year,
1776, the first child was born within the limits of the town, a son of James Lamb, and they called his name John. James Lamb is said to have made the first settlement on the farm known as the Ezekiel Knowlton farm. It is also related that Moses Trussell came up from Hopkinton, in 1774, and camped in the wilderness and felled several acres of trees on the Morgan farm, so called, adjoining the Knowlton farm ; that he burned off the land and planted it with corn ; that in the autumn he returned again to harvest his crop, but finding that he had been anticipated by the hedge hogs and other wild ani- mals, he returned to Hopkinton, and the next spring instead of coming to New London, he went to Bunker Hill, where he lost an arm and did not get back to New London until 1804, just thirty years after his first visit. Soon after 1 775 came also Mr. Samuel Messer. Benjamin Eastman, Nathaniel Everett, Nathaniel Goodwin, Ephraim Guile, and John Austin, with Jedediah Jewett and Thomas Whittier and others ; and in March, 1779, these citizens petitioned "the Honorable General Court of the State of New Hampshire then sit- ting at Exeter," that they might be in- corporated into a town, which petition was afterward granted.
The act of incorporation was as follows :
'• In the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-nine.
State of New Hampshire.
An act to incorporate a place called
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